Jacques
and Jeanne Bibaud – Our First French Ancestor

Our French ancestry begins in the early 1600’s
with Jacques Bibaud, a tavern owner, who married Jeanne Savignaux (or Savigneau).One or both of them
may have originally come from Verteuil in the province of Angoumois (southwest
of La Rochelle, near the present day city of Angouleme).

La Rochelle is located
southwest of Paris, France on the Atlantic Ocean, in the region of France known
today as Poitou-Charentes, in the department of Charente Maritime.This area was formerly known as the province
of Aunis.The islands of Re and Oleron
are just off the coast.

At
some point, Jacques and Jeanne lived in the village of LaFond, just north of
the city of La Rochelle.In 1635 he and his wife
were living in an area called Hure, in the parish of Lagord, also north of La
Rochelle, north of the old town
(the medieval center).

La Rochelle was founded during the 10th
century, and became an important harbour from the 12th century.Until the 15th century, La Rochelle was to be
the largest French harbour on the Atlantic coast, dealing mainly in wine and
salt.

From the mid 15th
century (beginning of the French Renaissance) to the end of the 18th
century (eve of the French Revolution) France evolved from a feudal country to
an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences)
organized around a powerful absolute monarchy, but with the explicit support of
the established Church.

During this
period, France expanded to nearly its modern territorial form.France also embarked on exploration,
colonization and mercantile exchanges with the Americas (New France, Louisiana,
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Guyane), India (Pondichery), the Indian ocean
(Réunion), the Far East and portions of Africa.

In the middle
1500s France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences,
namely the Protestant Reformation's attempt to break the unity of Roman
Catholic Europe. The French Protestants,
called Huguenots, were members of the Protestant
Reformed Church of France, and are historically referred to as French Calvinists.

A growing
Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots) faced ever harsher repression.This culminated in a massacre of Huguenots
in 1562 at Vassy, starting the first of the French Wars of Religion,
during which English, German and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival
Protestant and Catholic forces.

During this time, La Rochelle’s population
supported reformist ideas and became known as the unofficial Huguenot capital
of France.Catholic services were not
allowed in some of the churches.In
February 1568 the Huguenots destroyed many of the Rochelaise Catholic churches
(including Notre-Dame de Cougnes) in order to use the stones to reinforce the
city walls against the Catholic King and his forces.

Huguenots
continued to be persecuted in France.On
August 24, 1572, royal forces hunted down and executed over 3000 Huguenots in
Paris.Within three days royal armies
executed over 20,000 more.This event,
known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, was a turning point in both
French history and the history of the European Christian church.Protestants no longer viewed Catholicism as a
misguided church, but as the force of the devil itself.

In 1576 the Edit of Pacification was
issued.In La Rochelle some Catholic
religious services were now allowed.

In 1589, Henry
IV assumed the throne of France and wish to end the conflicts.Prior to this time he himself had espoused
Protestantism and was sympathetic to the Protestant cause.In order to secure his position as king he converted
to Catholocism in 1593, famously allegedly saying "Paris is worth a
Mass". As a result, he was then accepted
by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and the Pope (1595).

On April 13,
1598, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, thus bringing the French Wars
of Religion to an end.The Edict granted
French Protestants (Huguenots) substantial rights in a Catholic nation. The main concern was civil unity, and the
Edict separated civil from religious unity, treated some Protestants for the
first time as more than mere schismatics and heretics, and opened a path for
secularism and tolerance. The Edict
granted the Protestants one hundred places of safety, including that of La
Rochelle. Such an innovative act of toleration stood virtually alone in a
Europe where standard practice involved forcing the subjects of a ruler to
follow whatever religion that ruler formally adopted. On August 9 1599, to
respect the Edict, and after numerous delays, the Bishop of Saintes finally
celebrated a Catholic mass in the Chapel of Sainte-Marguerite in La
Rochelle.The Edict succeeded in restoring peace and
internal unity to France for many years.

It was at this time,
between 1600 and 1610, that our earliest known French ancestor, Jacques Bibaud,
was born.

This peace was disrupted
by Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624-1642) Cardinal
Richelieu.They involved France in
further Protestant and Catholic conflicts during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648),
fought principally on the territory of today's Germany, but also involving most
of the major continental powers. This
war was as much about politics as it was about religion.

While the Thiry Years’ War was taking
place, Louis XIII had to deal with renewed reformist conflicts in France,
resulting in three additional French religious wars:1621-22, 1624-25 and 1627-29.

The last war began in 1627 when La Rochelle
entered into an agreement with England, whereby England agreed to support the
reformist population in La Rochelle in exchange for access to their port and
the islands of Re and Oleron off the coast, thus giving them an English
foothold on the west coast of France.This agreement was something Louis XIII’s minister, Cardinal Richelieu,
could not allow.Richelieu also had a
personal interest in putting down the reformist.This resulted in the “Siege of La Rochelle” in
which Richelieu blockaded the city for 14 months (August 1627 to October 1628).To prevent the inhabitants from receiving
provisions and from leaving the city, Richelieu built a dike blocking the
entrance to the port and a 12km fortified trench around the city.

Three attacks by the English to gain a
foothold on the islands and break the siege failed.During the siege, the city population dropped
from 18,000 to 5,000, due to hunger and other difficulties.Pierre
Mervault, a
citizen of La Rochelle, wrote in 1628 (3):

…The famine worsened and left us hopeless.We were not able to find anything more to
eat.The horses, mules, dogs, cats, even
rats and mice had been eaten.There was no more grass in the fields.A day didn’t go by without 200-300 people or
more dying.Those left alive did not have any strength to bury the dead.

Eventually the city surrendered and lost
its mayor and its privileges.King Louis
XIII and Cardinal Richelieu took possession of the city.Entering the city as the victor, the Cardinal
attended mass on the morning of 1 November 1628 in the chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite.In the afternoon he
is at the side of King Louis XIII at the singing of the “Te Deum”, a Christian
hymn of praise.

We have no information
about our ancestor, Jacques Bibaud, and his wife, Jeanne, during these
conflicts and whether they suffered during the siege.Early records indicate that at one pont they
were living in the village of LaFond, just north of the old town (medieval
center) of La Rochelle, outside the city walls.Their first child was born in 1630 in La Rochelle.In 1635 he and his wife were living in an area called Hure, in
the parish of Lagord, also north of La Rochelle.Between 1630 and 1647 they had a total of six
children in La Rochelle.

In the spring of 1656,
Francois Bibaud, Jacques’ second child and our ancestor, immigrated to New
France (modern day Quebec), or what was then called Nouvelle France.His parents, Jacques and Jeanne, are believed
to have died in La Rochelle prior to 1666.

The continued persecution of the Huguenots
culminated with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685.Many Huguenots emigrated, founding such
cities as New Rochelle in the vicinity of today's New York in 1689.

During the reign
of Louis XIV (1643-1715), France was the dominant power in Europe, aided by
the diplomacy of Richelieu's successor (1642-1661), Cardinal Mazarin, and the
economic policies (1661-1683) of Colbert.

Louis XIV's glory
was irrevocably linked to two great projects -- military conquest and the
building of Versailles -- both of which required enormous sums of money (from
1664-1690, 81 million livres were spent on the château, 11 million livres alone
for the year 1685; the vast sums needed for its construction were often in
competition with military expenditures). Louis XIV's economic policy was
largely the creation of his minister of finances, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

The following period was a prosperous one,
marked by intense exchanges with the New World (Nouvelle France in Canada, and
the Antilles). La Rochelle became very active in triangular trade with the New
World, dealing in the slave trade with Africa, sugar trade with plantations of
the Antilles, and fur trade with Canada. This was a period of high artistic,
cultural and architectural achievements for the city.

Colbert's
mercantile system used protectionism and state sponsored manufacturing to
attract foreign money to France by the production of luxury goods. The state
established new industries (the royal tapestry works at Beauvais, French
quarries for marble), took over established industries (the Gobelins tapistry
works), protected inventors, invited workmen from foreign countries (Venetian
glass and Flemish cloth manufacturing), and prohibited French workmen from
emigrating. To maintain the character of French goods in foreign markets,
Colbert had the quality and measure of each article fixed by law, and severly
punished breaches of the regulations.

Unable to abolish
the duties on the passage of goods from province to province, Colbert did what
he could to induce the provinces to equalize them. His régime improved roads
and canals. To encourage trade with the Levant, Senegal, Guinea and other
places for the importing of coffee, cotton, dyewoods, fur, pepper, and sugar,
Colbert granted privileges to companies like the important French East India
Company (founded in 1664), but none of these ventures proved successful.
Colbert achieved a lasting legacy in his establishment of the French royal
navy; he reconstructed the works and arsenal of Toulon, founded the port and
arsenal of Rochefort, and the naval schools of Rochefort, Dieppe and
Saint-Malo. He fortified, with some assistance from Vauban, many ports
including those of Calais, Dunkirk, Brest and Le Havre.

Colbert's
economic policies were a key element in Louis XIV's creation of a centralized
and fortified state and in the promotion of French glory, including the
construction of Versailles, but they had many failures: they were overly
restrictive on workers, discouraged inventiveness and had unreasonably high
tarifs.

The Revocation
of the edict of Nantes in 1685 created additional political and economic
problems: of the more than 200,000 Huguenot refugees who fled France (to
Prussia, Switzerland, England, Ireland, United Provinces, Denmark, and
eventually America), many were highly educated skilled artisans and business
owners (tapistries, weaving, silver smiths, plate making) who took their
skills, businesses (and in some cases their Catholic workers) with them.

The wars and the
weather at the end of the century brought the economy to the brink: in 1683 the
national deficit was 16 million livres; from 1700-1706 it was 750 million
livres; from 1708-1715 the deficit reached 1,1 trillion livres.

To increase tax
revenues, the land tax on peasants was increased and international trade
severly hindered. Cold winters and crop
failures contributed to the problems.The
economic plight of the vast majority of the French population -- predominantly
simple farmers -- was extremely precarious.

La Rochelle eventually lost its trade and
prominence during the decades spanning the Seven Years War (1754-1763), the
French revolution (1789-1799) and the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). During that
period France lost many of the territorial possessions it had in the new World,
and also saw a strong decrease in its sea power in the continuing conflicts
with Britain, ultimately diminishing the role of such harbours as La Rochelle.

During the Second World War, Germany
established a submarine naval base at La Rochelle, which became the setting for
the movie Das Boot. A German stronghold, La Rochelle was the last French city
to be freed at the end of the War.

The port of La Rochelle is protected by the islands of Re and Oleron;
and as result it is considered to be the most reliable or safest port in the
gulf of Gasgogne. Accessible even during the severest weather, it makes an excellent
port of refuge. It is not surprising, therefore, that during the 17th
century La Rochelle was the primary departure point for most, if not all,
expeditions to Canada.

Source:
Sketch of the port of La Rochelle in the 17 century; Photo taken at the Musee
Obigny, La Rochelle,

La Rochelle has succeeded in beautifully
maintaining its past architecture, making it one of the most picturesque and
historically rich cities on the Atlantic coast. This helped develop a strong
tourism industry.

Jacques and Jeanne Bibaud – 1630 to 1656

In 1635, Jacques
Bibaud and his wife, Jeanne Savignaux (or Savigneau), were living in a place called Hure, just north of
the modern day center of La Rochelle.

They belonged to the parish church of
Notre-Dame de Cougnes in La Rochelle, which had been destroyed in 1568 by the
Protestant Huguenots.As a result,
between 1598 and 1662, baptisms took place in the nearby Chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite (now an exposition center called the Salle de l’Oratoire)
until the new parish church was constructed in 1662.

On 8 September 1630, Jacques Bibaud and his
wife Jeanne baptised their first child, a
son, whom they called Jacques (after his father).This baptism would have taken place at the Chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite in La Rochelle.

In 1632, Jacques and his wife Jeanne had a second child, a son, Francois, our ancestor who eventually immigrated to Canada.Given the timeframe, he also was probably
baptized in the Chapelle Sainte-Marguerite.Unfortunately, no baptismal record has been found to confirm his exact
date of birth and baptism.Conflicting
census records from Canada (1667, 1681) suggest he was born between 1632 and
1638.

Sometime between 1632 and 1635, Jacques and
his wife Jeanne became members of the parish of Lagord, located just north of
La Rochelle, France.

Between 1635 and 1647 Jacque and his wife
Jeanne had four more children, all of whom were baptized at Notre-Dame-de-Lagord,
today known as the church Notre Dame de l'Assomption de Lagord.

Their third child, Nicolas, was baptised on 19 September
1635 in the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lagord.

Approximate
translation:The nineteenth day of
September 1635, was baptized Nicolas, son of Jacques Bibaud and Jeanne Savigneau?; the godfather
Nicolas Savigneau?; the godmother Jeanne…?

Francois Bibaud – Immigration to New France
in 1656

In the spring of 1656, Francois Bibaud,
Jacques’ second child and our ancestor, decided to immigrate to New France, or
what was then called Nouvelle France.New France represents, approximately, the modern day province of Quebec,
Canada.At this time, Francois was about
24 years old, unmarried, and his occupation was a labourer.

Many of the early travelers to New France
(Quebec) traded their services as a laborer in exchange for passage, room and
board, and wages. They accomplished this by signing a contract before a notary
in France, which usually was for the term of three to five years.According to Gabriel Debien(4):

Many of those who left La Rochelle were poor and immigrated to New
France (Quebec) as contract laborers, agreeing to live several years in
the service of a colonist or merchant who advanced funds for their
voyage.

In order to ensure the legality of the contract, the laborers
signed a contract of servitude between themselves and the colonist or
merchant.This contract described
the conditions of their voyage, their work, their training, and often the
terms for their return to France.

These contracts were prepared by notaries, of which there were
several in La Rochelle.The notary
used by Francois Bibaud was Jacques Savin.Savin was a Catholic notary, and it is interesting to note that the
main Protestant merchants in La Rochelle did not use him.Notaries provided numerous legal
services, including marriage contracts, wills and testaments, sales, complaints,
agreements, etc.

There are few passenger lists for departing ships, as this was
only required after 1670.

Contract laborers were recruited by different groups, depending
on time period.Between

1655-1664, many
laborers were recruited by large immigration businesses which were mostly speculative.This was the case with our ancestor, Francois
Bibaud.He was recruited by Arnaud
Perez, representing one of the large Rochelais merchants, to fulfill a request
by Seigneur (Lord) Courville who lived in New France (Quebec).In the past, laborers were recruited for
specific needs.Now the recruiters began
to take anyone who was willing to leave.(After 1665, the Jesuits became the biggest recruiters, due to their
number of farms and needs for farm workers.)Arnaud Perez worked for the merchant company, Gaigneur-Grignon, composed
of Antoine Grignon, his son Jean, and his son-in-laws Pierre Gaigneur and
Arnaud Perez.This company ultimately

Some contracts indicated the specific colony where the laborer
would work.Francois Bibaud’s
contract specified that he was going to “Trois- Rivières” in the current
province of Quebec.

Times were difficult in the region around La Rochelle in the
mid-1600s.The area was still
suffering financially and politically from the Protestant unrest in the
early 1600s.Most recruits were
poor people from La Rochelle and nearby rural areas, and included sailers,
soldiers, farmers, woodcutters and general laborers.

Salaries for laborers at this time were generally about 70
livres per year.What was the value
of this in the mid-1600s?Not
much if you consider that two loaves of bread in Nouvelle Canada (Quebec)
cost about 6-7 livres, about twice the cost of bread in France.

After the contract was signed and before the departure, the
recruiter was generally responsible for paying the notary costs, the cost
of the passage, and providing the recruit with food, lodging, training,
clothing, and other cash advances.As such, the goal was to have the shortest time possible time
between the signing and the departure and the ultimate start of the job.

So it was then, that on 10 April 1656,
Francois Bibaud signed a contract of servitude with Arnaud Perez to work as a laborer
for three years in New France (Quebec).This contract was signed in front of the notary, Jacques Savin, in La
Rochelle.Francois was to be sent to the
area of Trois-Rivières, in the current province of Quebec.

Following is a photo of the book of notary
minutes from 1656, as it appears in 2005 in the Department Archives of Charente-Maritime.

This is the “contract of servitude” signed
between Francois Bibeau and Arnaud Perez.

Translation:in process

We can assume that Francois boarded ship
not long after and sailed across the Atlantic to New France.At this time, the journey could take anywhere from 35 – 100 days, depending on the
weather.

Descendants of Jacques and Jeanne Bibaud
Residing in France

Further research needs
to be done to trace the descendants of Jacques and Jeanne who remained in
France.It is not known if any of the
other brothers and sisters eventually immigrated to Canada.

Suffice to say that
there are many people living in this region of France today with the name
Bibaud, or variations thereof.It would
be great fun to eventually find a descendent living today in France!

Churches in La Rochelle, France

Parish
of Notre-Dame-de-Cougnes

Notre-Dame-de-Cougnes is the oldest
parish in La Rochelle.Her origins are
merged with those of the city.

Cougnes is a small village situated on a
mound surrounded by a saltwater marsh.According to the historian Arcère, the name is Celtic.The Celtic dictionary of Bullet tells us
that Cogn or Goign indicates a corner, an angle.Cougnes has been spelled Compnes, Coigne,
Cognes.

Around 1077, on this mound, the
ecclesiastics of the island of Aix, associated with the monastery of Cluny,
founded a priory and a chapel named after a saint, called
Sainte-Marie-de-Cougnes.It was a
simple chaplaincy for the care of the sick and underprivileged.

The nightwatchman

The inhabitants of Cougnes began to
settle near the sea, forming the center or nucleus of the city of La
Rochelle.In 22 September 1149, in one
of the oldest texts written on La Rochelle, the church of Notre-Dame de
Cougnes was sited.

The small chapel of Sainte-Marie was
rebuilt into a beautiful gothic church.According to Amos Barbot, Notre-Dame “had magnificent proportions and
was entirely covered by lead (roof?).Louis XI came there to pray on the 24 May 1472.

La Rochelle

Parish and
area of Notre-Dame-de-Cougnes

The parish was popular with the working
class, covering an area from the gate of Cougnes to the current market place,
and to the west, just to the ramparts and the Place du Château (now called
Place de Verdun).

The name of the streets strongly indicate
the types of people who lived and worked in the area:rue du Cordouan (leather and shoe makers),
rue des Buffetiers ou Buffeterie (wine merchants and innkeepers), rue des Cloutiers
also called rue de la Saulnerie ((nailsmiths), rues des Chapeliers
(hatmakers), des Chaudronniers (ironmongers), de la Vieille Triperie (tripe
seller), des Bouchers (butchers), etc.

At the begging of the year 1568, the
Huguenots demolished the rochelaise churches in order to use the stones to
reinforce the ramparts.

Notre-Dame-de-Cougnes did not escape this
disastrous event.Soon the only
remains were a piece of the wall with four flying buttresses, a few steps of
a staircase, one or two pillars and part of the altar.

These ruins would serve as the basis for
the reconstruction of the church, the first stone being put in place on the
29 March 1653. On the 1st November 1665, mass was once again celebrated
there.

The parishioners were so numerous that,
in April 1713, a decision was made to enlarge the nave with an additional
arch.

Àt the time of the French Revolution, the
parish consisted of 780 households, shops or warehouses, stables and
gardens.The church was closed and
served as a stable.

Religious services were restored in 1802
and Notre-Dame housed the religious offices of the parish.

Today, the church holds many
concerts.The cemetery, just north of
the church, has become a parking lot.

The
baptismal records of Notre-Dame-de-Cougnes begin on the 2 December 1662.

The
first marriage dates from the 7 June 1666.

The
first burial took place on the 5 June 1665.

After
the destruction of the original church in 1598, until the construction of the
new church in 1653, religious services took place in the Chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite.

Chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite

Sainte-Marguerite was originally a chapel
in the convent of the Sœurs Blanches de Sainte-Marguerite, of the Order of
Premontres.While never a parish in
her own right, her importance is essential in the first half of the 17th
century.In February 1568, the
Huguenots destroyed the rochelaise churches in order to reinforce the walls
of the city with stones from the churches.

The convent of the Sœurs Blanches de
Sainte-Marguerite was saved. The
convent served at that time as a hospital, then an arsenal.After the Edit of Pacification of 1576, the
Catholics regained half of the chapel.In 1579, they repurchased it, but the protestants continued to worship
there from time to time.The Synode
Huguenot of 1597 took place within its walls.

Oratorien

To respect the Edict of Nantes, and after
numerous delays, on the 6 August 1599, the Bishop of Saintes finally
celebrated mass in the chapel.After
that, the chapelle Sainte-Marguerite served as a place of worship for all
rochelais Catholics, except for a few periods where she became a protestant
church, such as 1621 and 1624.

The rochelais priests, adhered to the
Order of the Oratoire, to which they remained faithful to the end of the 18th
century.

At the end of a long siege, Louis XIII
and Cardinal Richelieu took possession of the city.Entering the city as the victor, the
Cardinal attended mass on the morning of 1 November 1628 in the chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite.In the afternoon he
is at the side of the King at the Te Deum.The chalice and the patan (Eucharistic plate) used by the Cardinal
Richelieu are displayed today in the Museum Orbigny.

Gradually, the rochelaise churches are
rebuilt.The chapel continued to serve
as a place of worship for the rochelais parishioners until their own churches
were re-established.

The Adoration of
the Shepherd
Eugène Le Sueur

The Oratoriens made some improvements,
rebuilding the clock tower and, in 1655, installing the painting by Eustache
Le Sueur called “The Adoration of the Shepherds”, now on display in the
Museum of Fine Arts in La Rochelle.

Additional improvements were made in the
18th century, but there remains today, on one side, a gothic portal dating
from the 16th century.The Oratoriens
were forced to leave their convent during the French Revolution.The chapel then contained a Seminary from
1812 to 1838, then the Brothers of the Christian Church until 1882.It was then taken over by the City who
demolished the principal portal..

The chapelle Sainte-Marguerite then
became a hall for festivities, by the name of "Salle de
l'Oratoire". It was used for dances, public meetings, examinations,
voting, concerts and conferences.In
1912, the chapel became the first film cinema of La Rochelle.

Clocktower of

Sainte-Marguerite

The chapelle Sainte-Marguerite, rue du Collège

The Catholic registers of
Sainte-Marguerite begin on 27 December 1598, but the first acts concern the
church of Saint-Pierre de Laleu. It was only at the beginning of spring 1599
that registered baptisms actually took place in the chapelle
Sainte-Marguerite, and terminated in 1662.

Located in a nearby suburb of La Rochelle,
the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lagord was founded in 1195 by the bishop of Saintes
at the abbey angoumoise of La Couronne.

The chapel came out of the Wars of Religion
in a very ruined state and was reconstructed in the middle of the 17th
century.In 1652 someone notes that she
“has been under construction for one year and has a beautiful length but not as
long as the old church”.

In the 19th century, the chapel was thought
to be too small, so the abbot Fleurimon called for an enlargement that would
require nearly a total reconstruction in 1840, two sides being on land given by
the ursulines of La Rochelle.The clock
tower was reconstructed in 1853.The
church was again enhanced in 1866 and 1886.In the interior, the neo-classic decor was retained.Ionic columns separated the naves.Two glass windows lit the central nave.One altar-piece framed a painting of “The
Assumption”, patron of the parish.All
this décor disappeared during a fire on 1 January 1939.The building rose from its ruins in seven
months, which explains its extreme simplicity today.

Three naves without any style are
separated by columns covered by wood wainscoting.At the far west, a few meters of old nave
remains, just in front of the three naves.A cornice with six blank medallions is noted at the south. The portal
has three arches resting on thin columns.The middle of the capital is ornamented by palmettes prolonged by beaded
stripes which are inter-crossing.All
this is rather late and emphasizes without a doubt the 12th century.The archaeological museum in La Rochelle has
seven medallions decorated by grimacing masques, baptised “capital sins”, which
come from the old church.A Calvary,
dating from 1618, decorates the front of the façade.

Two other places
of worship were part of this parish.The
first, at Verger, was built by La Couronne, as was this church.The second, at Lignon, belonged to the abbey
of Moreau in Poitou.These two chapels
were already in ruins in 1663.